In The Fires of Our Own Hearts We Burn
by Wickedgal08
Summary: Missing scenes from 3x05 The Reckoning. Just moments we should've seen, varying from Klaus spotting Elena, to Damon's frantic journey back to Mystic Falls.


**Title of fic: **In the Fires of Our Own Hearts We Burn  
><strong>Characters featured: <strong>Elena, Klaus, Damon, Stefan, Bonnie.  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T to be on the safe side.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Missing scenes from The Reckoning.

In The Fires of Our Own Hearts We Burn

….

His eyes catch her walking up to school, her hand gently brushing stray hair from her eyes. Every gesture is so human, and it fills him with rage to know Stefan lied.

The urge to strike her there and then consumes him.

Every part of him throbs with anger, a raging pulse of fury bursting to explode. It doesn't surprise him to lean another Petrova has betrayed him, but it stings, like salt on an open wound. It takes every bit of self-restraint he possesses to control himself.

She pauses, her eyes widening slightly, almost as if she can sense him lurking in the shadows. It certainly isn't her wisest move to walk to school on the fringes of night. He could take her out right here and now if he possessed the desire, or the knowledge that such an act wouldn't backfire horribly on him. He could snap her neck, or drain her dry, without so much as blinking, but though he isn't a believer of fate or destiny, he does believe maybe there's a reason she's alive.

He just has to make sure it's the right one for him.

There's some sort of event going on at the school. He knows because he's seen students silently filing in and out all evening.

But he backs away for now, deciding against approaching her, at least until he's managed to clear all this rage out of his system.

He finds his way back to the truck, watches Rebekah's eyes widen as he storms over, barely has the energy to verbally reprimand Stefan before he lifts back his hand, delivering a blow to Stefan's neck which violently breaks it. He hurls Stefan's body against the wall of the truth, not even yelling because his rage has gone beyond mere words at this point.

"Nick..." Rebekah begins, trying to rationally find the reason behind his anger.

"Don't." He cuts her down with a single word. "He lied to me. The doppelgänger is alive and well, looking like she bloody owns the place. That's what he's been hiding from me." He gives her a scornful look. "You love a liar, Rebekah. I won't have liars messing up my plans."

As Stefan stirs, he gathers up the rest of his rage, proceeding to break Stefan's neck over and over, relishing momentarily incapacitating the cause of his anger, knowing this is only going to be a portion of what he'll deliver to his doppelgänger once he has confirmation her death is what needs to happen in order for him to successfully create hybrids.

After the last of his rage dies, he sucks in a breath, pausing to contemplate his next move, aware Rebekah hasn't moved since his assault on Stefan began. He waits for her judgemental comment, perhaps a snarky insult or two thrown in for good measure, but she simply stares at him, the tiniest amount of fear showing in her eyes.

"What are you going to do now?" she asks, her voice controlled.

He doesn't even hesitate.

"I think it's time for a little reunion with my doppelgänger, don't you?"

…

"I wouldn't have done it for you."

Damon's voice is authoritative, calm, although his insides feel anything but. The words in Bonnie's text have him all riled up, shaken to the core because the one thing he's tried to ensure never happens has happened.

_Klaus is at the school. He has Elena. Where are you?_

He can feel Katherine's stare follow him, even as he starts up the car and speeds down the highway. He knows she's probably feeling rebuffed, bewildered by his attitude adjustment – in one breath he's declared he and Elena are taking a break, and the next he's barrelling towards her, his heart in his mouth – and he can't blame her for that. What he can blame her for is her unhelpful attitude.

There are some things he is not willing to leave to chance and Elena's life is one of them.

Dark thoughts flood his mind. He can't help but think the worst, it's what he has had to deal with his entire life. But he can't lose her, because right now she's the one thing keeping his sanity together, keeping him from making a fundamental lapse in judgement resulting in him doing something incredibly stupid.

The drive feels foreign to him, but as he increases his speed, he recalls where to go.

Even in a crisis, some things never leave you, his sense of direction being that thing. But he feels his fingers tap against the wheel impatiently. Even being at the fastest this car can be, it doesn't feel fast enough. He tries to coax more speed out of it but the car is having none of it.

Leaning back, he settles for just driving as fast as he can.

The question is will that be enough?

Eventually – and that word feels like an understatement, because it feels like years have passed rather than the odd hour or so – he pulls into the car park of the school, and plunges inside, searching for someone.

That someone turns out to be Bonnie, who, strangely enough, looks completely soaked, her eyes filled with weariness, even resignation.

"Where have you been?" she challenges, the moment her eyes meet his.

"Relax. I'm here aren't I?" he bites back. "Where is she?"

Bonnie lifts up her shoulders, worry flooding her face.

"I left them in the gym but I've just gone back there and nobody's there except..." Her face crumples. "There's a couple of bodies there."

His face doesn't change. "Anybody we know?"

"No. At least, nobody you know." Bonnie shakes her head. "But I can't - "

"I'll sort it later," he promises. "Right now I need to know where they are, so I need you to think for me, Bonnie, before I turn this town upside down trying to find them."

She nods, before inhaling deeply, a look of concentration crossing her mind.

"I heard Klaus earlier... He was with his sister, Rebekah. They were talking about the hospital. I didn't dare – I mean, I - "

Bonnie looks seconds away from collapsing with hysteria, so he gently takes her by the shoulders and steers her down the hallway.

"Find someone to get you a lift home. I'll find her," he says, with an unbelievable amount of kindness for someone of his calibre.

As he strides down the hallway, he hears her call after him.

"Hey, have you seen Jeremy? He's not answering his phone."

But he doesn't answer.

He _can't _answer. Not now. He's already left Elena in Klaus' hands for too long, and he's certainly not going to delay his rescue attempt at more by answering a question which, frankly, doesn't really consume much of his attention.

He doesn't run to the hospital, but rather lets his guilt weigh at him one overbearing footstep at a time, and when he hears that smug, self-righteous voice, the urge to kill flares up inside him.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up to the party."

….

She shudders at the contact, his fingers brushing against her skin as he clears her hair out of the way, exposing her neck.

So many emotions rush to the surface – anger, fury, devastation, fear – but she represses them, keeping her eyes locked on Stefan, who doesn't seem to recognise her, in terms of what they were – what they are – to each other.

As Klaus moves aside, she wants to run but physically cannot. Her legs are frozen in place, her entire body gripped by this paralysing sense of fear. The more she embraces the fear, the harder it grips back, keeping every muscle, every reflex, from helping her to move, to run from this nightmare.

As Stefan shoots forwards, his teeth on full display, she lets out a sharp scream for all the good it'll do her. An intense pain strikes her, and her body literally shuts down because it's all too much. As the once love of her life begins to drink from her, she collapses, a pained cry being the last sound to leave her lips.

Klaus grins, taking this all in.

Stepping forwards, he puts a firm hand on Stefan's shoulder, pulling him off.

"You can stop, my friend. I need to try something."

Stefan snarls, an action born from frustration at being deprived off blood but, after pulling himself together, he pulls back.

Klaus retrieves a small tube, resting it against the still bleeding wound from Elena's neck. He's long since been attuned to the potent scent of blood, but the temptation to finish her himself still rests there. It would be so easy to end the accursed bloodline for himself, only he has the sneaking suspicion that would be a fatal error to make.

"Take her to the hospital," he murmurs, once he has what he needs. "Compel a nurse to hook her up to one of those machines which takes blood. Tell her to keep Elena sedated, that her blood is very important to me." He grins briefly at that. "Oh, and Stefan -"

Stefan pauses in the process of picking Elena up, slowly wiping the excess blood from his mouth.

"Yes?" he snaps, looking wary.

Klaus closes the gap between himself and Stefan, keeping his eyes level with Stefan.

"Your job, in a word, is to protect Elena. See no harm comes to her, not even from yourself. Got it?"

Stefan inclines his head, expressionless, and then stoops back down to pick up Elena, not a single trace of emotion on his face as he does so. There's no tenderness there in the way he holds her, no look of longing or regret in his eyes as he looks down, all of which tells Klaus he was right to tear away Stefan's humanity.

"I'll protect her," he says flatly, before walking away.

Klaus stares at the vial of blood in between his fingers, hoping for a miracle, praying his instincts aren't wrong on this occasion.

They've never been wrong yet.

Then again, it was those same instincts which had been so sure he'd killed her in the first place, those same instincts which had allowed himself to believe the only reason her friends were absent from the ritual in the first place was because they'd realised he was unbeatable.

Like everything else in his life, he decides not to trust them but simply to hope that everything will go his way.

It has to.

He hasn't come this far, sacrificed this much, just to fall at the final hurdle.

….

Tentative is perhaps the best way to describe how he approaches the subject of the night.

She's pale, withdrawn, quiet.

It breaks his heart to see her this way, breaks his heart to know if he hadn't been such an arrogant, childish moron and left town he could've saved her sooner.

He hesitates around her, wondering how best to approach her. Her eyes, once full of hope, now stare listlessly at the floor, a dull glow replacing the spark which used to linger there. He could kill Stefan for putting her through all this, but he knows deep down the reason for all of this mayhem is Klaus.

For once, he takes a different tactic with her, and pours her a drink, handing it to her carefully, like he's afraid any rough movement might shatter her.

They spend most of the night talking.

She talks, he listens. Even when Stefan comes in, bearing an attitude that could antagonise even the most peaceful of pacifists, they continue to talk, although he notices at one point the conversation veers off into different waters, and he realises she's trying to chalk the night up to a disaster and move on.

"Want me to take you home?" he asks, when he notices she's starting to shift, looking uncomfortable like she would rather be anywhere else right now.

"Actually...if it's okay... I'd rather stay the night here," she confesses, the words tumbling out of her like she's been holding them in for a long time. "

"You sure Ric will approve?" he teases, though the remark is strained, stemming from the fact he is aware he far from Alaric's favourite person right now.

"Right now, I just want to sleep," she says wearily. "I want to go sleep like a normal human, and deal with all the drama in the morning."

"Well, there are six other bedrooms in this house. Take your pick and make yourself at home," he tells her, smiling gently.

"Thank you," she says, scooping herself up before walking out of the room.

It's unsurprising to find she's not there in the morning when he wakes up.

She has a habit of slipping through his fingers just when he believes they're making some sort of progress.

Not that he blames her – after the way he's acted lately, he would be avoiding himself too.


End file.
